I'm John Batsu with my colleague Professor Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army War College.

This is New World Report and we're looking now at a capital of Montevedo and a country

Uruguay. I do not recall speaking of in these last years.

Uruguayans chose the presidential contenders who will contest October elections.

Opinion polls show the left-wing opposition edging ahead with voters. Professor, my understanding of Uruguay is that it has no major overwhelming difficulty

compared to its neighbors that would be Brazil and Argentina.

Perhaps that's why it's not been much in the headlines.

It does mention in the Reuters story, the new president, whoever it is, right or left, will need to bring down high homicide rates,

improve the social safety net, and balance trade with major partner China to keep track on the economy which is growing at 4% this year.

So is it a good news story, a bad news story, did China buy Uruguay?

What what murder rates?

Thank you. Jen Uruguay is perhaps. what murder rates thank you

jenn uugway is perhaps the best governed most prosperous country in in South

America that you've never heard of historically it was basically a sliver of land caught between two regional giants.

The United Provinces of Argentina on the one hand during the independence period in the 19th century

and Brazil on the other hand and its independence leader Jose

Artegas really you know navigated through that very difficult and to this day

Uruguay still finds itself economically and politically kind of a sandwiched

of prosperity. As you alluded to, over the years Urugue, despite good

institutions and relative transparency, has actually also become deeply dependent on China in terms of

exports of its largely agricultural economy.

Historically, Uruguay's politics were similar to that of Europe, relatively left.

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